AFGE has launched a new series, Chaos and Corruption Weekly Digest, to document chaos, corruption, and efforts to dismantle our democratic institutions by the Trump administration.
Week 7 saw Trump doubling down on his attacks on federal workers and veterans and injecting chaos into the economy.
As Republican lawmakers are trying to implement Trump’s tax cuts for the billionaires by adding work requirements for people to receive Medicaid health coverage and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits — even though data shows most recipients who can work are already working — the president at the same time continued to fire federal workers, including 80,000 at the Department of Veterans Affairs, one-fourth of whom are veterans. How does firing employees who want to work make America great again? Veterans rightly feel betrayed by Trump.
The American people oppose Trump’s attack on federal workers. According to a recent survey, most Americans believe federal employees are essential to the functioning of the United States.
His trade war with Canada, Mexico, and China also threatened our economic growth.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is using his massive wealth to fund deceptive ads in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, the same tactic he used to defeat Kamala Harris in the presidential election last year.
Here’s a quick recap of Trump’s attacks in his 7th week in office and how these actions hurt federal workers and the American people they serve.
March 7: The Homeland Security Department announced it was stripping collective bargaining rights from 47,000 Transportation Security Officers in what our union said was retaliation for AFGE challenging the administration’s unlawful actions targeting federal workers. Project 2025, a conservative blueprint that Trump disavowed during the campaign trail, calls for immediately ending collective bargaining rights at TSA.
March 7: The Department of Defense started putting thousands of probationary employees on leave with plans to fire 5,400 probational employees and 5-8% of all civilian workers.
March 6: Trump directed the Justice Department to ask judges to require people to put up money if they want to sue his policies and seek a temporary restraining order.
March 6: The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a supposedly independent watchdog where whistleblowers report wrongdoing in the government, will now be run by partisan hacks after Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger dropped his lawsuit challenging his removal by Trump. The day before, the appeals court allowed Trump to temporarily remove him while waiting for his case to be heard, reversing the lower court’s decision which stated that Dellinger could only be removed for cause.
“I think the circuit judges erred badly because their willingness to sign off on my ouster — even if presented as possibly temporary — immediately erases the independence Congress provided for my position, a vital protection that has been accepted as lawful for nearly fifty years. Until now,” he said.
March 6: A judge reinstated a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), saying Trump doesn’t have the authority to fire her. In his effort to expand his presidential power and degrade the independence of the NLRB, the agency tasked with resolving disputes over unfair labor practices, Trump in January fired NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox without cause before her term ends in 2028. The immediate result of Trump’s action is the NLRB’s lack of a quorum, which means it can’t issue decisions.
Wilcox’s lawyer wrote, “Because the President’s action was plainly illegal under existing law, the only path to victory for the President is to persuade the Supreme Court to overrule Humphrey’s Executor and to adopt a new, more aggressive vision of presidential power that would effectively abolish independent agencies in the United States.”
March 5: The Supreme Court handed Trump a loss as it ordered the administration to pay nearly $2 billion worth of outstanding funds for the services already performed by USAID contractors around the world. A district court judge previously ordered the administration to release the payments, which the administration appealed. The appeals court rejected its appeal and now the Supreme Court.
March 5: The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) told Trump to reinstate more than 5,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) probationary employees illegally fired.
March 4: Trump announced plans to remove 80,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a move criticized by his own former VA secretary.
March 4: Trump triggered a trade war as his massive 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico went into effect. He also increased the tariffs on goods from China from 10% to 20%. These will cause the American people to pay more for everyday essentials such as groceries and gas at a time when inflation remains high. Automakers are now warning the new tariffs could push up car prices by $12,000. The tariffs also caused the U.S. stock market to plunge.
March 4: OPM retroactively edited its Jan. 20 guidance to say it did not order the firings of probationary employees. The changes came after a judge ruled against the administration in a lawsuit brought by AFGE, saying it was illegal for OPM to tell other agencies to fire their employees. The judge ordered OPM to rescind the memo, but OPM instead revised it.
March 4: To avoid protesters angry with Trump’s policies and layoffs, House Speaker Mike Johnson told Republican members of Congress to avoid town halls.
TSOs made enormous progress at their agency with a union contract, but the Trump administration earlier this month illegally terminated the negotiated contract with AFGE, prompting our union to file a lawsuit.
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Week 9 saw President Trump attacking our country’s last line of defense against dictatorship as he ignored a court ruling and demanded the judge’s impeachment in his latest abuse of executive power and assault on America’s rule of law.
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A federal judge March 18 ruled that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) violated the Constitution by shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
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